UK prime minister candidates both say they would not support U.S. strikes against Iran

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt.
(Image credit: Matt Frost/ITV via Getty Images)

President Trump and Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom's frontrunner to replace outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May, see eye to eye on some things, but that doesn't mean Johnson would follow Trump into battle. At least not blindly.

During a debate for party leadership, Johnson and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt were both asked if they would support U.S. strikes against Iran, considering the high tensions between the two powers. Both candidates said they would not.

"Diplomacy must be the best way forward," Johnson said. Hunt also expressed concern that conflict could break out accidentally.

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That wasn't the only Trump-related question the two candidates answered, however.

Trump's tweets telling Democratic congresswomen to go back to the "broken and crime infested places from which they came" reverberated across the globe, prompting Johnson and Hunt to address them during the debate. The two were again largely in agreement on the matter, with the former calling Trump's comments "unacceptable" and the latter deeming them "totally offensive." Despite the criticism, though, they both hedged on calling the tweets racist. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.